Lord Voldemort and his Really Excellent Plot
by The Little House Scribe
Summary: It's the season of badwill, and the Dark Lord has a magical plan...


**Lord Voldemort and his really excellent plot.**

It was around Christmas time at Malfoy Manor.

The undisputed Lord of the mansion, Lord Voldemort, was not very much into the goodwill towards all men and all, but he did have a desire for a gift on the day.

"My Lord." Bellatrix leaned over to him, adoration heavy on her eyelids. "What do you desire for Christmas?"

Nagini, with her front curled around Voldemort and resting her head on his shoulder, raised her head and looked Bellatrix in the eye, as if admonishing her for suggesting the Dark Lord would wish to be involved in any way with such an occasion.

Voldemort stroked Nagini's head with his spidery fingers. Nagini settled back onto his shoulder, flicking her tongue out a Bellatrix as if to taunt: _'Look where I am!'_

"As it happens, Bella, I do desire something." Voldemort said softly. "Yourself, Lucius and Severus will attend to me and the matter tonight."

"Yes, my lord." Bellatrix said, bowing her head respectfully while gazing at the Dark Lord's white face through her eyelashes in lustful adoration.

Nagini, Bellatrix, Lucius and Severus all sat themselves in private audience with the Dark Lord.

"Severus, have you made any progress in discovering the leaders of the stylised 'Dumbledore's Army?'"

"My lord, it appears that Neville Longbottom."

At this point Snape was cut off by a shrieking cackle by Bellatrix. Voldemort lifted his hand to silence her, and Severus continued.

"However, my lord, if you have known him as long as I have, you will know that he is a hopeless idiot, certainly incapable of leading any resistance."

"Like Frank and Alice, without the help, eh?" Lucius asked, eliciting chuckles from Bellatrix and Voldemort.

Lucius pulled himself back down. He was very much out of favour, and would do anything to get back in the Dark Lord's graces. Severus realised that he should pretend to react positively, so he curled his lips slightly. That seemed sufficient – Snape was not the joking kind.

"Therefore it is my extrapolation, my lord that Longbottom is covering for someone more capable."

"Find that person, Severus." The Dark Lord commanded.

Severus, realising this was his cue to leave, stood from the table, bowed to Voldemort and smirked at Bellatrix before billowing out of the room.

Voldemort frowned to himself, considering for a while.

"Lucius, what is the name of Potter's adopted family? Weatherby, wasn't it?"

"Weasley, my lord." Lucius answered, voice dry.

Voldemort settled back into contemplative frowning for a while, before exclaiming: "By Salazar's beard, I have it!"

Bellatrix leaned in eagerly.

"I will kill two…." Voldemort paused, counting on his fingers. "No, many Snidgets with one spell!"

Voldemort allowed the worship of his loyal followers to sink in before continuing on. "I will capture Harry Potter, and break the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore's Army all in one swoop!" Voldemort declared. "And how will I do this?" Voldemort asked rhetorically

"By kidnapping the young she-Weasley! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

"HAHAHAHAHAHA! Excellent plan, my lord!" Bellatrix praised him.

Lucius, who had been staring at the table, raised his head. "Umm…my lord?"

"What, Lucius?"

"About the plan…"

"What about it, Lucius. Is it not a brilliant one?" Voldemort asked challengingly.

"Well…" Lucius said, worried about offending the Dark Lord but feeling it necessary to remind him of his past failures. But Voldemort did not give him the instant chance, by explaining to Lucius his plot in more detail.

"We kidnap Weasley, and bring her here. Then the Order and Dumbledore's Army attempt a rescue, and I send a message to Potter though our connection, he comes running to save her, then I kill him!" Voldemort concluded triumphantly.

Lucius was going to regret this. "My lord, you have tried that before..."

"No I haven't!" Voldemort disagreed. "We _pretended _to kidnap Sirius Black, remember."

Lucius shook his head. "Before you returned, my lord." Lucius flinched at the memory of the torture he received from Voldemort when the Dark Lord found out what he did with his diary.

Voldemort's eyes widened in realisation.

"That ended with your vanquishment, Potter chopped a snake's head off, and freed one of my elves."

Nagini hissed in Voldemort's ear; clearly any plan that involved a chance of her losing her head was not a good one.

"_Quiet, Nagini." _Voldemort hissed back. "Nevertheless, Lucius, I am the Dark Lord and we will carry out my plan. Now come, we must prepare for our assault!" Voldemort commanded, standing up and leading his followers out of the room.

In Hogwarts, the mood was dark and sinister. Ginny Weasley, Colin Creevey and Luna Lovegood were escorting first years to their common-rooms late one day, trying to give them a little piece of protection from the wrath of the Carrows. But despite such efforts, the DA were severely outnumbered and could not hope to protect the whole school. They just keep on fighting with whatever means they could.

As Colin formed the point, Luna guarded the right side of the dozen-or so young Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, and Ginny watched the left flank. The group turned down a corridor where they found a couple of young students huddled together.

Ginny kept her eye on a corridor going down from her position, and Colin kept watch over the path they had come from and were heading. The two students were near a wall on the top end of the T path, and Luna went over to comfort them.

"It's alright now, you'll be okay." Luna told them, wrapping the sniffling youngsters in a soft hug while Colin looked on, stony faced at the thought of what the Carrows or their underlings had done.

Luna uncorked a pain-relief potion, and gave a little to each of them. "Does that make you feel better?"

"Thank you." One student answered weakly.

Luna helped them up and guided them to the group, where the other students made space in the middle of the group for the newcomers to slot into.

Luna went over to Ginny. "They've suffered the Cruciatus Curse badly; they'll need to see Madam Pomfrey quickly – I'm afraid there won't be time to take everyone else to their common-rooms."

"One of us will have to take them then." Ginny said, considering her options.

"I'll do it." Colin spoke up chivalrously, not wanting either girl to be alone.

Ginny nodded a second later. "Thank you Colin."

Colin gently led the duo away.

Luna and Ginny took a head count of the students, but were unaware that a head had peeked out and observed them from the bottom of the T.

Vincent Crabbe pressed his wand to his Dark Mark, sending a message to the Dark Lord that his quarry had been found.

"Right, he's found her!" Voldemort declared to Bellatrix and Lucius, and started walking through Hogwarts, holding his arm up like an antenna as the sporadic pulses of Crabbe's message directed him.

Crabbe stepped out to reveal himself to the young Weasley, and Gregory Goyle did likewise from the other side of the opposite end of the T.

"Luna, you'd better go on." Ginny told her friend.

"I can't leave you here alone, Ginny." Luna said.

"We can't risk the students being caught in the crossfire. Get them to safety, that's the priority." Ginny said. "Besides, it's Crabbe and Goyle. Hopefully it won't be too hard."

Luna couldn't argue. Ginny might or might not be able to overpower the duo, but the other students needed to be evacuated. "I'll send help." Luna promised, before leading them on.

Ginny drew her wand and prepared to fight.

Crabbe and Goyle were only the ringleaders. They had about ten or so younger Slytherins with them to help.

This was going to be a bit more difficult.

However, Ginny had the advantage of battle experience against fully-fledged Death Eaters, as well as training from Harry Potter and a fantastic accuracy and speed of movement facilitated by her Chasing and Seeking skills in Quidditch.

The Slytherins had skill and knowledge in Dark Curses, but had spent so long practicing them on students unable to defend themselves or move that fighting someone who was ready and able to fight back was a far more difficult prospect.

And it helped Ginny's cause that Crabbe and Goyle were dull as dodoes.

After a pitched battle, in which Ginny had knocked out three Slytherins in quick succession, knocking them out of their complacency, Crabbe and Goyle had upped their efforts; the Dark Lord had forbade the Killing Curse, but allowed everything else. Goyle tried to Imperiuse Ginny, but she dodged and he hit one of his Slytherin chums; apparently Goyle was not good at lifting the curse, because it took a minute or so for Ginny to finally manage to stun Goyles victim, ending the connection. Crabbe managed to hit her with the curse a little later, but Ginny's mental defences, strengthened by her drawn out battle with Tom Riddle five years earlier, easily repelled him. In fact, Crabbe seemed to forget that _he _was supposed be controlling her; the message flooded back into his mind, and Crabbe started doing a two-step which knocked two of his allies over. Ginny beat Goyle while Crabbe was out of commission, and by the time Crabbe broke his own spell, Ginny had knocked everyone else out as they got each other more times than they got Ginny.

Ginny overpowered Crabbe, before surveying the bodies of the Slytherins – all with minor injuries – as she caught her breath; she needed to move before the Carrows showed up. As she was about to, she saw one end of the corridor blocked by Bellatrix Lestrange, who was licking her lips in horrific anticipation. Turning to look down the other side, her fears were realised as Voldemort emerged, trapping her between the two.

Fighting one – no, two – Ginny saw Lucius Malfoy cowering down behind Voldemort as he was wandless and he saw what Ginny had done with the Slytherins lying around – Death Eaters and Voldemort was a far greater challenge than the Slytherin Students.

Voldemort smirked as he offered her a deal.

"Surrender now and you won't suffer the pain of your defeat!"

Ginny thought to herself: _'What would Harry do?'_

Bolstered by the thought that Harry would fight on no matter the odds, her eyes seemed to spit fire in Voldemort's direction. He recognised that defiance, and gave the signal for the battle to begin.

Ginny soon learned that it was basically hopeless if she continued to duel as she had done with the Slytherins – Bellatrix's knowledge of the Dark Arts was only exceeded by Voldemort, and although Ginny was dodging everything the two – not assisted much by Lucius Malfoy – were throwing at her, it was only a matter of time before something managed to hit her.

Unable to do anything except deflect and dodge for most of the time, Ginny did manage to get a few well-aimed jinxes off, but Voldemort's shield spells were too powerful and they cannoned away from the barrier.

"Nyeheheheyehyeheh!" Voldemort cried.

That gave Ginny an idea – attacking directly wasn't going to work, so she used Charms and Transfiguration to change the area to her advantage. This was difficult thought, as Hogwart's magical construction had protection from this kind of change. Nevertheless, Ginny managed to gain some ground on her opponents using this method.

After flicking an attack from Bellatrix away and causing pieces of masonry to rain down on the female Death Eater, Ginny cast a powerful Diminuendo at Voldemort, whose instant reflexes summoned a shield to send it flying back at Ginny, who deftly dodged in and allowed to crash into Bellatrix, who suddenly found her legs the size of a cockroaches.

"AVADA KEDAVRA!" Bellatrix screamed from the floor. "AVADA, AVADA, AVADA KEDAVRA, ADAVA KEDAVRA!"

Ginny and Voldemort both danced around to dodge the mad-woman's spells. Lucius dived behind the wall for safety, poking his nose out to watch the crazy scene.

While Bellatrix was on her mad rampage, Ginny managed to dodge Voldemort's Incarcerous spell, before using her left hand to cast a weaker non-verbal stunning spell while rocketing a stunner fifty feet into Lucius's nose, knocking him out cold.

Voldemort now didn't have to dodge Bellatrix's spells, but he had lost both his Death Eaters in the process.

But in a one-on-one duel, he was still clearly on top. Ginny just needed to find an opening to escape while her mind worked rapidly. _Why was Voldemort after her – was it as Harry feared, he had come to take her and lure Harry into a trap? If that was the case, Ginny was determined not to risk Harry's life by her capture._

The duel increased in ferocity. Ginny knew that it was a capture attempt, as Voldemort made no effort to use killing curses or other deadly spells. As Ginny managed to defend herself time and again against the odds, she began to think – maybe, just maybe, there was a sliver of a chance, a tiny ray of hope that _she _might be able to defeat Voldemort right there and then.

So Voldemort, having raised the level of intensity in the duel to what he was sure was above the teenagers level, was astounded when Ginny upped the ante even higher. Ginny's attacks were hitting him with the ferociousness of a lioness, and Voldemort found himself forced back from the attack.

Voldemort rallied himself with a resounding cry of "NYEAAA!", steadying his retreat and redoubling his efforts. The battle was taxing him, but he knew that Ginny had to be near the end of her endurance.

But as she fought on and on, he began to doubt whether she was.

Voldemort, in the process of side-stepping a jinx, opened his mouth once again. 

"Are you on crack or something?" Voldemort asked Ginny.

Ginny did not respond in a civilised manner.

"Because it seems like you've taken some sort of energizer. Did the Mudblood get it for you? There's no way that you're doing all this naturally."

Ginny didn't reply, and Voldemort muttered to himself about youngesters these days and their disrespect to their elders.

Luna and Colin reported the problem to Neville Longbottom, who led a rescue team of sixth and seventh year Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors to where Luna had left Ginny.

Meanwhile the Carrows were patrolling, wanting to find a lone student to torture for no reason but their own gratification.

Hearing the noises of Voldemort's and Ginny's duel, the Carrows thought that some Slytherins had trapped a few students and were toying with them. Eager to join in the fun, the Carrows lumbered to the corridor.

"What the hell happened here – my lord!" Amycus cried as he surveyed the bodies of the Slytherins.

"You've garn and killed them!" Alecto shouted at Ginny.

"Shut up and help me, you two!" Voldemort commanded.

They both leapt up and started attacking Ginny from behind.

"Alecto, wake Bellatrix up!"

Alecto did so, and now Ginny was out-numbered four to one – Lucius lying forgetten down the other end of the hall.

Ginny could not hold on much longer. As it became clear she was about to be defeated, Ginny tossed her wand high into the air and lodged in a vent where it clattered into a secret passage known to the DA – she was not going to let it fall into the hands of the enemy. Wandless, Ginny fought on for a few seconds before Voldemort finally knocked her out.

"Come, Bella!" Voldemort commanded. "Bring the girl."

Voldemort strode out, jauntingly strutting as he led his vicotious team down the hall. He turned when he heard Bellatrix's heavy breathing as she carried Ginny's limp body in a firemans grip.

"In the name of Herpo, are you a stupid muggle, Bella?" Voldemort demanded.

Bellatrix blubbered. "Sorry, my lord."

"Ah, shut it." Voldemort commanded. "I have no time for your whining. Mobilicorpus!"

Voldemort guided Ginny's body to float ahead as Neville and his friends rounded the corner on the other side and launched a barrage of stunners that sent Alecto and Amycus flying though the air.

Bellatrix took over holding Ginny up while Voldemort hastily warded the hall to block Neville from pursuing them for a time.

Neville reached the barrier and let a roar of rage as he saw Voldemort's fleeing behind disappear down another corridor.

The DA tied Lucius, Alecto and Amycus up, before Professor McGonagall arrived on the scene.

"What happened here?" McGonagall asked.

"Voldemort's got Ginny." Luna told her.

"He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?" McGonagall asked, stunned, before quickly recovering herself. "Quickly, leave, before Severus finds you. Take Alecto, Amycus and Lucius, but leave the students. I will inform Ginny's family."

"Alright, we need to get out of Hogwarts." Neville told the group as they huddled in a secret chamber. "We need to find a way to get everyone out quickly."

"Nev," Seamus interruptted. "We'll never be able to get enough of us out. You'd better take a handful of people and leave us here to guard the rest of the students."

"Alright. Luna, you'll come." Neville said.

"Of course." Luna replied.

Colin, who had forged a half-blood identity to stay on in Hogwarts, was called out next.

"It's Ginny's wand!" Michael exclaimed as he picked it up. "I think I should go – the Carrows are beginning to hate me."

"We'll go to the Room of Requirement. Michael, can you cast a disillusion charm on us?" Neville asked.

Michael nodded and the seven chameleons walked/were taken to the seventh floor.

At the very dark and sinister Malfoy Manor…

Narcissa Malfoy waited for her husband's return. The Dark Lord had taken him on a mission without a wand. As Bellatrix and Voldemort crashed through the door, Narcissa ran through the house to get to them.

"Where's Lucius?" Narcissa asked.

Voldemort swivelled around as if only just noticing his absence.

"Shows how much use your useless husband is!" Bellatrix cackled at her sister's distress, as Voldemort took Ginny down to the dungeons and slammed the door on Narcissa's face.

Voldemort chained Ginny to the wall while the girl remained unconcious, whilst Bellatrix shuffled around on her knees, begging to be allowed to torture Ginny. 

"Oh, please my lord, please, please, please, please please please please, please, please,"

Ginny woke up during this, and through bleary eyes observed as Bella chased after Voldemort, begging some boon. Ginny rolled her eyes at Bellatrix's antics.

"Alright Bella!" Voldemort said.

"Oh, thank you, My lord. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!" Bellatrix cried rapturously, pressing kisses into Voldemort's hands while Ginny didn't need to mime gagging.

"Ah, excellent, you're awake." Voldemort said, addressing Ginny, while Bellatrix stopped kissing him, and watched Ginny, panting like a dog.


End file.
